Warning to anyone who uses Facebook Marketplace as most scammed items listed

18 January 2024 , 11:59

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Facebook Marketplace lets people sell their unwanted items on the platform (Image: Getty Images)

More than a third of Facebook Marketplace adverts could be scams and up to £60million has been potentially lost to them in 2023.

TSB issued the warning after its recent investigation looked at 100 Facebook Marketplace posts on their feed which included cars, watches, games consoles, air fryers and handbags – and engaged with the seller to determine whether the items were genuinely for sale, or scams.

The fraud team discovered that 34% of these sellers were using tactics known to be commonly used in scams. These included taking the fraud experts to fake websites, refusing to allow viewing of an item in person, and demanding advanced fees. TSB's investigation also discovered items advertised as "brand new’" were listed for hundreds of pounds less than their real retail price.

For example, an iPhone 13 was listed at just £84 - when the Apple website sells the model for £599. On contacting the seller, a TSB fraud expert was directed to a scam website to make the payment. This was also the case for a Ninja air fryer which was listed as £64 when the retail price sat at £249.

The team also found a 2016 Audi Q3 being advertised for £6,000 and the seller refused to answer any questions from TSB's investigator and instead directed them to an email address. This email address was later found to have been reported as part of a car fraud scam on a community website in 2023.

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TSB says its findings chimed with the excessive fraud rate from Facebook Marketplace, which currently accounts for 73% of all purchase fraud cases at TSB – and remains the biggest driver of fraud by volume. TSB calculated that £59,714,000 may have been lost by users of Facebook Marketplace last year and they came to this overall figure by combining data from the trade association for the banking sector UK Finance. This equates to £160,000 being lost daily on the platform.

Matt Hepburn, fraud spokesperson at TSB, said: "You wouldn’t shop at a supermarket if a third of the items were stale or counterfeit – so the same should apply to Facebook Marketplace, where you have a one in three chance of being scammed when paying online. Social media companies really must act on their commitments under the government’s Online Fraud Charter by urgently clearing up their platforms – removing scam adverts is a good first test.”

A spokesperson for Meta said: "With tens of millions of people using our apps daily in the UK, we recognise our important role in tackling the industry-wide issue of online purchase scams and have systems in place to block scams. Facebook Marketplace is a local meet-up and collection service so we don't facilitate payments or shipping, but scammers exploit this by taking conversations off our platforms where we can't enforce.

"We encourage our community to report scams immediately so we can take action and we'll continue equipping customers with knowledge to transact securely and avoid fraud on Marketplace."

According to TSB, the items most commonly associated with scams on Facebook Marketplace last year were: